What is the Real Story of Hanukkah?

Part 5 of the historically accurate 8 Part Series

Photo by Arno Smit on Unsplash

To read the Introduction to this 8 Part series please click below…

https://lewiscoaches.medium.com/what-is-the-real-story-of-hanukkah-c288e61a17b4

Q. What do historians know of the time period and the external political events that culminated in the Maccabean revolt of Judah Maccabee? If necessary please review important point that has already been covered in previous parts of this series.

A. Aside from what is written in sacred Jewish texts, there is much physical factual data that has been gathered concerning this period in history. At the beginning of the 2nd century BCE, the Seleucid Empire expanded into Israel at the expense of Ptolemaic Egypt.

The lands of the former Kingdom of Israel and Kingdom of Judah (c. 722–586 BCE), had been occupied in turn by Assyria, Babylonia, the Achaemenid Empire, and Alexander the Great’s Hellenic Macedonian empire (c. 330 BCE), although Jewish religious practice and culture had persisted and even flourished…